Transceivers are typically electronic devices that communicate with other transceivers or data communication devices by transmitting and receiving information across a wired or wireless medium using a signaling protocol. Transceivers may be designed to conform to one or more industry standards. Such industry standards may specify physical, electrical, and/or mechanical criteria for devices such as transceivers. An industry standard may also describe methods of communicating or performing operations with other devices that comply with standard. One industry standard for transceivers and other devices is IEEE Std 802.3 as published by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE), 3 Park Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10016-5997, USA.
Transceivers may include various modes of operation. Examples of such modes of operation include various operating speeds (e.g., 10 Mbps, 100 Mbps, 1 Gbps, or 10 Gbps) or other capabilities (e.g., full-duplex or half-duplex modes) that may be used in conjunction with other transceivers or data communication devices that have a corresponding mode of operation. Auto-negotiation may also be used for other purposes such as exchanging information to tune the performance of the transmitter to adjust for the channel and optimize the signal at the receiver. Clause 28 of IEEE Std 802.3 provides a process known as auto-negotiation which allows transceivers or other devices to communicate their modes of operation to one another so that the most advantageous mode of operation of the devices may be used. Unfortunately, the auto-negotiation protocol defined by Clause 28 has several disadvantages. For example, the protocol may cause devices the negotiation process to operate in a relatively slow manner by using 100 ns link pulses that are transmitted in bursts at intervals of 16+/−8 ms. This may become a problem particularly when devices need to exchange more negotiation information than was originally intended. In addition, the relatively slow signaling rate provided by the protocol may place a low frequency requirement on the analog electrical properties of a device.
It would be desirable to be able to increase the rate at which an auto-negotiation function may be performed between devices while reducing any analog electrical constraints of the devices.